Fundamental Analysis, Value Investing, and Growth Investing

Benjamin Graham developed "value investing", a style adopted by Warren Buffett, one of history's most successful investors. It is based on "fundamental analysis", which quantitatively compares a company's stock price to various measures of financial strength and promise. "Growth investing" is a fundamentally different style that seeks to identify tomorrow's great business successes. Learn the ins and outs, and the pros and cons, of these basic investment styles.

Technical Traders and Commodity Speculators

Most investors do not get involved in speculation or commodities, but speculators play a vital function in financial markets by absorbing and managing risk. Technical traders practically ignore business results within specific companies, instead focusing on broad market indicators such as price trends, trading volume, and rate of change in major stock market averages.

Bargain Hunters, Contrarians, Cycles, and Waves

Jean Paul Getty and John Templeton are great examples of "bargain hunters" or "contrarians" who seek to find promising stocks that are out of favor or fashion: and therefore undervalued. Slightly different are those who study cycles and waves to determine regular and (hopefully) predictable patterns of favor and disfavor in the market.

Descartes, Bacon, and Modern Philosophy

These two great 17th-century philosophers aimed to break free of oppressive traditions. Free scientific inquiry led them to skeptically question everything, though they also tried to reconcile science with religious faith. Both Descartes and Bacon extolled the individual, arguing that the human mind can penetrate the deepest secrets of existence. Their ideas formulated the problems that would occupy philosophers for the next 300 years.

Deal Makers, Brokers, and Bankers

The institutions and big players of Wall Street shape your financial world in a profound way; many act on behalf of millions of people as they invest pension funds, retirement plans, or other group assets. Investment bankers play a key role for companies that sell stock; stock brokers offer an array of services to fit a number of investor needs. Learn how deal makers, brokers, and bankers shape your financial opportunities.

Real Estate and Collectibles

Investments in tangible assets offer a unique set of opportunities and problems, often related to limited supply (so that price becomes especially sensitive to changes in demand). Learn about the techniques of investors who have succeeded (and failed) with this special class of investments.

Swiss Gnomes and Global Investing

As the world becomes more economically and culturally integrated, there are vast opportunities for growth, especially as less prosperous countries seize the opportunities of capitalism and the market economy. Hear the success stories and pitfalls, the strategies and secrets, of the world's great international investors.

The Keynesian Revolution

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was without question the most influential economist of the twentieth century. His most important work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, was published in 1936, and it was widely perceived as offering plausible explanations and solutions for the Great Depression.<

Money Managers and Mutual Funds

What do professional money managers offer to the individual investor, and to what degree can they be expected to outperform the market? Investors increasingly choose mutual funds, themselves run by money managers, as a preferred way to invest in securities. How should an investor come to terms with the dizzying number of choices available, and how can we anticipate the future performance of a manager of a mutual fund?

Thinking Like an Economist: A Guide to Rational Decision Making

Economic forces are everywhere around you. But that doesn't mean you need to passively accept whatever outcome those forces might press upon you. Instead, with these 12 fast-moving and crystal clear lectures, you can learn how to use a small handful of basic nuts-and-bolts principles to turn those same forces to your own advantage.

The Classical Economists

The classical economists pioneered a new way of thinking about the uniquely human tendency to produce, trade, consume, and accumulate. Adam Smith (1723-1790) explained how the division of labor expands productive power and argued for freedom in economic affairs. David Ricardo (1772-1823), a London stockbroker, developed the concept of diminishing returns, the wages-fund doctrine, and classical rent theory.

Frank Knight and the Chicago School: The Role of Economic Uncertainty

Frank Knight (1885-1972) fathered the famous Chicago School of Economics, whose members are among the most decorated in history. An abstract theorist, Knight emphasized the role of risk and uncertainty in economic affairs, and was philosophically concerned with such topics as means vs. ends, economics as a study of human nature, and human communication.

The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders

Some traders distinguish themselves from the herd. These supertraders make millions of dollars - sometimes in hours - and consistently outperform their peers. As he did in his acclaimed national best seller, Market Wizards, Jack Schwager interviews a host of these supertraders, spectacular winners whose success occurs across a spectrum of financial markets. These traders use different methods, but they all share an edge. How do they do it? What separates them from the others? What can they teach the average trader or investor?

Stock Frauds, Manipulations, and Insider Trading

Public confidence in financial markets depends on the perception that they are fair and just, not distorted or manipulated to the advantage of particular traders. This is the story of those who have sought illicit advantages, and how markets and investors can protect themselves against the dark side of human nature.

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) and Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) were perhaps the foremost defenders of the free market and limited government during the mid-twentieth century ascendancy of Keynesian economics.

Joseph Schumpeter and Dynamic Economical Change

Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) viewed capitalism as a dynamic engine of progress. In his view, mature economic systems find a regular and stable routine of supply, demand, and exchange; Schumpeter called this the "circular flow". Entrepreneurs interrupt this circular flow with new ideas and visions about the economic future, recombining existing resources to create new and more valuable products and services.

Taxes, Estate Planning, and Asset Protection

Any good financial plan must address how to preserve what you earn. Though tax law and inheritance laws constantly change, this presentation will give you a clear "big picture" on the basic pitfalls and opportunities in this potentially complicated (yet vital) area of financial planning.

Complexity and Chaos

Newtonian physics described a regular, clock-like world of forces and reaction; randomness was equated with incomplete knowledge. But scientists in the late 20th century have found patterns in things formerly thought to be "chaotic"; their theories help explain the unstable, irregular, yet highly structured features of everyday experience. It now seems likely that randomness and chaos play an essential role in the evolution of the living world and in intelligence itself.

Robert A. Handler says:"Gotta balance the other review. This was good."

Since World War II, economists have struggled to understand the Keynesian Revolution and to apply its lessons to the modern economy. The heart of the debate over Keynes' radical ideas has been whether they could or should be reconciled with the older, neoclassical economic theory.

Investment Philosophers and Financial Economists

Saving, budgeting, and investing are keys to creating wealth, but there are many different philosophies about how to approach this essential task. The "investment philosophers" offer systematic beliefs about investing that often parallel other systems of human conduct (e.g. Taoism, the hunter-warrior). The financial economists (e.g. Fisher, Keynes) offer insights about how human behavior is collectively expressed in markets.

Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor

Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway's visionary vice chairman and Warren Buffett's indispensable financial partner, has outperformed market indexes again and again, and he believes any investor can do the same. His notion of "elementary, worldly wisdom" - a set of interdisciplinary mental models involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management - allows him to keep his emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment.

The Money Game

Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "the best book there is about the stock market," this timeless classic by the creator and host of the Emmy Award-winning TV show Adam Smith's Money World is still relevant more than 40 years later.

Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Chinese Philosophy

China's two greatest philosophers, Confucius and Lao Tzu, were intensely interested in how we should live and how a good society is governed. The central concepts of Confucianism are li, the proper ordering of society through rituals and ceremonies, and zhen, the proper ordering of the self through humaneness, benevolence, and love. Daoism, taught under such masters as Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi, meditates on the interdependence of opposites and teaches the path of non-resistance.

The Federalist Papers

Originally published anonymously, The Federalist Papers first appeared in 1787 as a series of letters to New York newspapers exhorting voters to ratify the proposed Constitution of the United States. Still hotly debated and open to often controversial interpretations, the arguments first presented here by three of America's greatest patriots and political theorists were created during a critical moment in our nation's history.

Publisher's Summary

In America's financial nerve center, fortunes are made, and sometimes lost. J.P. Morgan, Jay Gould, Hetty Green, Jim Brady, Jesse Livermore, Bernard Baruch, Joseph Kennedy, and many others have made "the street" what it is today. Learn about the techniques, principles, and innovations that have shaped the market, and sharpen your ability to interpret today's market in a broad historical context.

The Secrets of the Great Investors series is a collection of presentations that explain, in understandable language, the strategies, tactics, and principles that have produced great wealth, and how you can improve your financial future. History's greatest investors used powerful investing philosophies to produce superior results, and you can learn from their successes and mistakes.